They told him where he can put his thumb

A number of readers let us know about the Chaos Computer Club’s latest caper: they published the fingerprint of German Secretary of the Interior Wolfgang Schäuble. The club has been active in opposition to Germany’s increasing push to use biometrics in, for example, e-passports. Someone friendly to the club’s aims captured Schäuble’s fingerprint from a glass he drank from at a panel discussion. The club published 4,000 copies of their magazine Die Datenschleuder including a plastic foil reproducing the minister’s fingerprint — ready to glue to someone else’s finger to provide a false biometric reading. The CCC has a page on their site detailing how to make such a fake fingerprint. The article says a ministry spokesman alluded to possible legal action against the club.

I am unable to see how come some people (and groups of people: Like governments) cannot see that technology has made it easier to impersonate someone, not more difficult.